Last Photography from Tianjin

I spent too long here. I met too many people to leave so quickly. I know it reads like I'm vacation, and to an extent I am, but this lifestyle has its tough parts. You get tired of saying "goodbye." I can't recall how many "going away" parties I've been to, how many good people I've wished adieu. It's my turn now. Whenever someone leaves the apartment (two roommates have left so far), the office custodian comes and she cleans out the room. Tomorrow my room will be dusted and swept to make room some other fresh off the boat laowai. My time has come.

I began my day with a Sichuan lunch. Two of my students from the Jixian retreat - Chinese English teachers - wanted to say goodbye before I left. We met, they laughed at my new short hair and beardless complexion. And then we ate a standard atrociously large six plate meal. We spoke like old friends. Maybe it's because we were. We did spend two weeks in a mountain compound. I realized though that I was truly going to miss Tianjin in more than in a "it was fun" kind of way. I have Chinese friends here. People who care about me.

I left there and decided I needed to get some pictures of my neighborhood I'd been too embarrassed to grab earlier. I started in Carrefour. I deeply wanted a photo of one of the rollerskate security guys. That's the kind of Chinese thing you can't make up. I saw one in front of the registers when I walked in, but he was on the move and it was too crowded. I went upstairs. No luck. I walked around with my camera out for 10 minutes. I went downstairs. Another ten minutes, no sightings. All the time I held my giant FZ30 in hand waiting for my white whale. I walked out of the security checkpoint to find him amongst the registers again. No luck. I went back upstairs. Then downstairs. Then I left. I never got my photo.

I went from there to the kabab stands of the alley. I shot some men playing cards waiting for the bus. I shot a fruit vendor who was happy to play along after I bought some peaches. I walked a few feet further down to a kabab stand that's been my lunch stable since arriving. I'm unusually devoted to family-run businesses. Back in Jacksonville it was Flip's. If you knew, I mean really knew me, we've ate at Flip's. Jim sold Flip's right before I moved... just another sign telling me my time in Jacksonville was coming to a close. I was lucky enough to find out on the last day they were open under old management. These guys, a husband and wife team, were with me when all I knew how to say was "Ni hao" and still wondering if the meat was cat or dog. They were patient with me, so I stayed with them.

Thus, I present to you the photos from my last day in Tianjin:


Victoria and Jessica, two of the Chinese English teachers from the Jixian retreat.



Fruit vendor in my neighborhood street market.



Kababs cooking at my local street BBQ joint



The husband at the kabab stand I frequent.



Ditto.


Shirtless man inside Carrefour. It's hard to express how popular the shirt-over-nipple style is.

[more coming]


Tags: Treyopia Tianjin photos photography stories story Ali Baba Ali Baba's

Tianjin Nightlife Roundup / Last Night Out

The nightlife in Tianjin is limited. It begins at home. Chinese men love baijo, a grain liquor that tastes like jet fuel and leaves a scarring aftertaste hours later. I hate it. I cannot concieve how this became the national drink of China, but it is. The Japanese have saki, which is delicious, the Chinese have an Everclear + 409 cleaner concoction. The occasional homeless person has a 50 cent bottle and businessmen devour it at lunch. Very often, however, men drink it after work at home. Alcoholism seems a distant concept to the Chinese. The ability to hold your own, toast after toast, is ingrained in the Chinese machismo.

The next step up is the streetside kabob stand where men drink baijo or beer on micro-stools and micro-tables. Beer sells for 4 yuan a bottle. You have to return the bottles when you're finished with them. The stools come up maybe 10 inches and the tables maybe 2 feet. If your a normal Chinaman, it ends here. There are no bars, there are no clubs. You're neither interested nor can you afford it. Besides, you don't need to meet women there. Friends and family set you up with future wives who think throwing down 30 yuan for a beer is ludicrous.

Ali Baba's is the the next step. It's a laowai hangout. It's nearly impossible to find, which is fun. There are no signs and the website gives you an intersection to be dropped off at and GPS coordinates. I'm not kidding. You pass through a steel door followed by a thick blanket deadening the noise inside. The joint is small and is probably 30% European, American, and African. Guest grafitti and foreign flags drape the walls. Beer is cheap, they can cook up some decent Western dishes [grilled cheese!], and can mix a mean White Russian. [Public Service Announcement: Never, under any circumstances, order a margarita in China unless you are inside an American owned restaurant.]

Dance clubs are the next rung up. Beer starts costing nearly American prices, the music can be good, and one can enjoy a night chatting up the opposite sex with most basic of language skills. Cozy's is standard - a mix of lounge and danceclub, followed by Scarlet's which is likely the best club even though it can be overrun by laowai sometimes [it's very near Tianjin University and Nankai University], followed by the giant two-story Coco and the sketchy Seven, both off of "Bar Street" and staffed by paid dancers. I'm sure in Shanghai and parts of Beijing it gets more expensive, but these are the options open to most foreign teachers and tourists.

Photo's from my last night out in Tianjin


A photo of some new crew and some British teachers we met at Ali Baba's on Friday night


Me, Tony, Anna, and Betsy


Inside Ali Baba's.


Another shot inside Ali Baba's


The pen was dying, but I left my writing on the wall: "Trey was here in the summer of '06"